Region 1 Voters Take Up Budget Thursday

Seventh Attempt To Pass School Budget

October 16, 2013|By ROSE LICHTENFELS

rlichtenfels@courant.com

Washington may not be the only place in the U.S. guilty of letting politics complicate passing a budget.

Voters in the Region 1 School District in northwest Connecticut Thursday will consider the seventh proposed budget for the 2013-2014 fiscal year. The budget has now failed to pass six times, trumping the region's former 1994 record of five rejected budget proposals within one year.

"Every time we vote it's costing the region $7,000," said Jonathan Moore, chair of the regional school board, which includes Falls Village, Cornwall, Sharon, Salisbury, Canaan and Kent. "Thursday's vote will bring Region 1's total expenditure on the proposed budget to nearly $50,000."

The $14.4. million proposed budget is a 1.6 percent reduction from this year's budget, which covers operating costs for Housatonic Valley Regional High School and other administrative services. Until a new budget is approved, the district will operate under the 2013-13 budget.

"It's not complicated – this budget is getting defeated because the people want change and they want the administration out. There's no doubt about that," said Marshall Miles, an independent petitioning candidate from Salisbury running for the Region 1 board.

"People are upset with the Region 1 Board of Education and the Superintendent is not doing a good job with the high school – it's not about the money," said Miles, who said he anticipated Thursday's vote would likely result in another failed budget.

Critics also say they are dissatisfied with raises given to Superintendent of Schools Patricia Chamberlain and Diane Goncalves, the assistant superintendent.

"Those that are upset by the contract renewals are simply uninformed - the total raises for both the superintendent and assistant superintendent over the next three years is approximately $18,000,'' Moore said. "So while some argue over their modest salary raises, we are spending exponentially more by not passing a budget."

Gale Toensing, who represents Falls Village on the board, said that the majority of the board has failed to hold the administration accountable – and students are the ones paying the price.

"The saddest thing about all of this is that our students, who should be achieving at a higher level than they are, are falling through the cracks,'' she said. "The average student is not doing as well as they should be, because they are not getting what they need. Our tests scores are pretty dismal, and it's all about standards as far as I'm concerned. It's a top down structure and the buck stops at the top."

The budget standoff comes after controversy that began in 2010 when the high school principal and vice principal resigned. This disarray was documented in a board report which found a "hostile" and "intimidating" atmosphere between the superintendent's office and high school staff.

Toensing credits unsettled chaos in 2010 for the 2013-2014 budget's failure to pass. "It all comes back to the unresolved issues revealed in the report in 2010. Threatening, bullying, cronyism - these are serious issues on the part of the administration that have festered because they have not been addressed," Toensing said. "It's like an untreated disease – it gets worse."

Moore, the board chair, noted that central office administrators went before the board in 2012 to communicate that, "the atmosphere in the office is fine, it's a good place to work and there aren't any problems.'' The real issue is money, he said.

"People have said it's not about the money. But when people say that, my immediate response is that it's always about the money,'' Moore said. "The repercussions of what they are doing is money, and it's costing the region tens of thousands of dollars just so some can exercise a vague dislike for the superintendent."